Harley and Ivy meet Betty and Veronica #5

Almost at the end now. Last issue was basically just filled with tweenage shenanigans instead of the initial plot they were trying to run with so hopefully this one will remember the whole purpose to this stupid cross over and get with the program.

Ooh, look, they managed to put out a cover that DOESN'T involve cheerleaders in any major way! *

*There still is a cheerleader costume here but it's not the focus point. 






I'm probably jaded but the second cover is just making ME think of road safety regulations. I'm also wondering why Harley is not the one driving. Probably so she can show off her thong more.
Yeah, didn't we get quite enough of that in the Rocksteady Arkham-verse?



Anyway, these covers are the best we've had for a while in this series, even if Archie is crammed in there like 'totally still in this comic guys! please buy it!' and Hartly and Ronivy are just.. shoved in as an after thought shaped like a stinky fart. It's a bit bizarre.

(It also looks like they're running from a bunch of goblins shooting stars at them?)

Especially when - yup - these are adult women in teenage bodies mackin' on some teenage boy.
Archie looks uncomfortable... everyone should feel uncomfortable about this. That said, the eyes are nice on that cover, in a lifeless kind of way.

Also - brush your hair Ivyca, you feral.




Anyway remember last time how Betley snapped and went full-Harley on us? (Side note: you never go full Harley) Then they stole a taco truck (because of course) and made for Gotham? Yeah well they left their friend Reggie behind - Reggie who, like our 'heroines' is still wearing his stinky costume party outfit and make-up - and may I remind you that he also suffered a severe head injury that caused him to believe he WAS the Joker. He probably also has a concussion but no-one is giving him even a sample of first aid because they're too concerned about Betty and Veronica being fwends.

Yeah. What a nice.. nice place full of nice... nice people Riverdale must be. I say this because even a bunch of Gotham creeps give this guy a lift home, I mean GOTHAM. You can barely get a coffee in Gotham without someone trying to kill you! Speaking of people trying to kill you, Sabrina the snarky teenage witch is rudely subject to a) some assholes driving a taco truck into her house then b) some assholes telling her to zip it and attacking her with grassy... stuff in her own doorway.

I mean, her house is already slanty and now she's got this to deal with? Besides... she didn't actually say anything apart from referring to a zombie stampede (it does not sound like a Mexican food-mobile hitting a house. Been there, escaped that.) and she was talking to herself then.

I take it Ronivy is still pissed about being transformed, but she appears to actively be trying to smother the one person who could probably help them. As I've mentioned before, I do not have much knowledge of Sabrina past what I saw on the comedy TV series so I don't know how much her classmates know about her magic. I don't know much about Betty and Veronica either but this whole mini series has been pushing at us that Betty is smart and capable while Veronica is rich and incompetent.

So, um, when Sabrina and her talking cat Salem are openly talking about spells and witchy stuff and magic...and apparently Veronica has been bad mouthing Sabrina because all this weird stuff happens around her, Sabrina has been seen doing goofy spell things with a known magical magician who magics... she's also been seen zapping other student's science projects...and Betty is standing in a clearly magically themed room... so why does Betty go 'Derp? Witchy stuff?' like she's never come across the concept? Or Freaky Friday, for that matter.

Anyway through some vague art they get teleported to where Hartly and Ivyca are and they tackle them because only touch can fix this. Veronica hails a police car like a taxi - wow, money sure talks fast! - but Harley and Ivy stop them because they feel like they can talk it out now. A bit convenient. Characters are teleporting around the frame like no tomorrow and there are memory loss issues but also somethings that can't be forgotten in a hurry.

They go to a chock'lit shoppe... which is actually a diner.. because Riverdale is either still stuck in the '50's or are French inspired hipsters who can't spell.
It is here that Harley decides to take a steaming dump on continuity by playing "sugar sugar" on the jukebox. Then dancing around yelling millennial things for no reason because.. we needed a quick Archie universe reference and to show how FUN Harley is.

Yeah...this song represents her life or something. That must be why she doesn't even know half the lyrics.
It's actually not that complicated a song.
A song I really like besides that but still, it's pretty simplistic.

I mean, if they couldn't put the proper lyrics in for legal reasons, why even have them play it or include the reference in the first place?
Also, judging from the lines around Harley's feet - she may just become a swiffer mop by the next issue.







In the Chock'lit.. Diner... wherever the hell they are, Poison Ivy decides to have a rational conversation with Betty and Veronica about why they're trying to save a swamp. I feel like they should have done this from the beginning? I know they 'tried' talking to the KFC guy but let's be honest... their hearts weren't in it. They knew they had to pad out six issue of this shill so they wouldn't do anything productive that might ruin their aptitude for shenanigans and kooky hijinks!

Ivy conveniently recalls a meeting that she conveniently had off screen earlier on in the day with Lenny the Lamprey and Mr KFC Guy. Turns out the KFC Colonel/Mr Lodge/Discount Commissioner Gordon has tied up most of his fortune in the development of the swamp university.
Lenny the Lamprey, for some unknown... unfathomable reason... appears to be wearing a leather dining jacket, jeans, boots along with a waistcoat and a cravat. Given KFC Lodge commisioner's uppity standards at the FREAKING COSTUME PARTY HE HELD I'm surprised he'd agree to do business with someone like Lenny on looks alone.

Ivyca chews out another criminal for being a criminal. She also flaunts how she reads the Wall Street Journal. Well well, Ivy... very smart. But you still don't understand how high school works, so there's that to contend with.

Anyway, the point here is that evil money lender Lenny is going to sabotage the Sweet Water Swamp to cash in with insurance, leave the Lodges in debt and skip out back to Gotham to spread fashion clashin's around town. Man, clearly I misjudged how rich the Lodges were if Lodge had to take a loan from him instead of a more reputable lending firm. Or getting a loan at all.
Harley chimes in with some hideously butchered English but everyone ignores her and rightly so.

Also, we see no other diners present despite the fact that we were shown several other seats being filled. No one objects to known villains Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy just grabbing a friggin' milkshake with some civilians. This is despite the fact that Betty and Veronica were kicked out of a high end boutique for being these guys and everyone at the costume party was like "awwwww shiiiiiit' when there were two bunches of idiots dressed like these idiots.

Plus I seem to recall in the very first issue Harley was talking about warrants out for them?

Maybe they weren't in the diner after all. We see them leave the building... which... looks NOTHING like what it did when we were first shown it. So maybe they were across town? Maybe..

Only Peachface Knucklehead pulls up and he's like 'aha, everyone visits the chock'lit shoppe!' like it's the local newsagency or bank.

Harley has the body dimensions of someone who needs to visit a doctor because her hips and thighs seem to be shrinking rapidly. Both Betty and Veronica look more full figured than she does, and considering they're tweenagers in high school that's annoying.

Just like Veronica calling her father "daddy" annoying.










Suddenly back at Lodge's... lodge? Man I don't know what time it is but I'm guessing it's late because Lodge and the four girls have an awkward conversation where no one is looking at each other or even facing the right way. Then Ivy uses the power of onomatopoeia to screw with Lodge's mind so he will give her the deed. Naturally, she fancies herself a responsible caretaker and that may be the case when it comes to greenery but this doesn't seem well thought out.

For one thing, green hocus pocus won't hold up legally and there are several witnesses present.
I'm by no means an expect in deeds but basically Lodge isn't acting of his own free will and is being drugged as such by Ivy, so he's not in any legal capacity to sign over deeds.
Simply having the deed in your possession won't help, there's been no sign over and I doubt Ivy - being a convicted felon - has the legal right to RECEIVE a deed. I could be wrong, but if I am I don't think I'm far off.

Naturally the girls are pissed about this double cross. Harley isn't sure about it. Ivy is sure, but her face too fluctuates wildly between her New52 plant face and normal skin tone for me to be concerned with anything else. Betty devises a genius plan that involves faking a lost contact lens.. this only really draws attention to the face that Veronica had bright blue eyes in the diner but now has browny eyes.

That's some nice teleporting, Betty. 

This leads to a pretty awkward fight scene between the girls and Harley.

LOL at Ivy's Home Alone face!

I think Harley's meant to have landed on her feet here instead of her pasty ass, and then backflipped back behind Betty but the way it's posed looks like this was her falling from a great height. Then Betty manages to pull up a rug... which is pretty handy because I'm pretty sure she was standing on carpet - all three, maybe four of them. This causes... a suit of armour to collapse on Harley.
So.... um, where was the suit of armour again? 'Cause I went back and checked the previous pages and there was no foreshadowing armour ANYWHERE.

Another scene of four people talking to each other but looking blankly ahead and not even in the other person's direction. Smithers the Butler attempts to help but gets punched in the face by some weird Peachhead goon. Damn, is it this easy to get into Lodge's lodge? Why the hell didn't Harley and Ivy just break in in issue one instead of doing the ridiculous costume party farce?

Peachhead and Giggles make a generic catfight comment that just.. alright, it skeeved me out.
There's two HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS - I feel like I need to keep pointing this out - being constricted and/or strangled by two weirdly dressed GROWN ASS FELONS.
And these two grown ass felon men have boners. I realise there's probably a niche kink market out there that's probably loving this but was it really necessary for this comic?

Of course there's a secret Butler Community full of trained ex-MI5 agents. Why do you ask?


For people who can't be bothered following all these stupid characters and their ridiculous plans, they dumbed it down for you.

Lots of people don't understand insurance and that's fair enough but geez, you don't think a bit of dynamite at the scene might raise a few friggin' eyebrows?
It's not an instant payout you nitwit! Geez, is this a Riverdale cross-over or Looney Toons??

So the girls are all tied up in stupid damsel in distress poses. Harley's tied to two portapotties? Ivy's stuck in a pipe? Betty and Veronica are tied back to back like they couldn't figure out a way to walk off from this stupid area? Oh, they can't, they're relying on an injured/drugged or gagged Reggie to save them but he's probably concussed again so he trips over for a third time lucky head shot.

Preach, Jugs. 

This is the next scene we get - there is no context. Is this the next day? The next hour? Betty and Veronica are now slumped behind a sign either asleep or unconscious and near a lot of explosives.
Everyone else arrives, also very near the explosives... wait, I'm confused. The handy diagram told me that only the two girls were collateral damage.. are they planning to kill EVERYONE in this town?

I feel like I missed a lot here. Why did Veronica want them here again? Was this glossed over in a previous issue?

The Short End of the Jester Schtick

I really feel for Reggie. Like, he gets a hit to the head so hard he forgot who he was, he was dumped in Gotham, experimented on with Poison Ivy's powers and then left behind, then finally he gets beaten up by weirdo Gotham criminals... and most of it is glossed over in extremely brief panels in order to show the Freaky Friday's doing craaaaazy things and dancing around to a song by a cartoon band.

I'm sorry... that stupid jukebox scene does my head in.

Much like the erratic art! Yeah, the people are mostly fine I guess and it's pretty to look at but would it kill the artist or the editor to say hey - you realise these character's eye lines don't match up right? or That's a sweet building but it looks nothing like the exterior you just showed us. Suit of armour? what suit of armour? 

They seemed to really play up the 'Harley is a ditz lol' thing a lot in this issue as well. A lot of characters were basically ignored, like Reggie and Archie or Jughead.
Given the 'story' I guess they weren't involved too much anyway but it means I didn't get any sweet Jughead comic relief until one panel at the very end, and that was so-so.
There's only one issue left, so hopefully everyone will pull their finger out and do a decent story in that one because it's definitely missing in this clunky, woeful issue.

Wotta Comedian!

Harley: How am I supposed ta kill five years?!  An' don't say go through med school again!

Ivy: Who knew poison ivy could hurt so much?
Harley: That's what they call the itch of irony, Red.
Ivy: No one calls it that.

Ivyca: Such a colourful reputation too, if the stories I've read in the Wall Street Journal can be believed.
Lenny: Now, I was never convicted on those charges...
Ivyca: After all the money you 'allegedly' spent on your acquittal, I should hope not. 

Ivy: If you two teenyboppers hadn't decided to play hero, none of this would've happened!
Veronica: If you hadn't stabbed us in the back when we were willing to help save this smelly swamp, none of this would've happened!
Harley: If I never took that job at Arkham, none of this woulda happened!